Pakistan's media regulator has ordered television channels to stop live telecast of briefings of political leaders containing "defamatory and derogatory content" ahead for former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's return to the country on Friday, NDTV reported. "I am giving this sacrifice for your future, so give me your full support and go with me with your hands in my hands".

The former prime minister and his daughter were in London, where Sharif's wife Begum Kulsoom is undergoing treatment for cancer.

From Lahore, they are expected to be taken to Islamabad by helicopter and moved to Adiala jail.

Their flight, EY243 departed more than two hours late from Terminal 3 at Abu Dhabi airport.

Security has been tightened and all roads leading to Punjab's capital city have been blocked to prevent PML (N) supporters to reach there.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) team, awaiting the father-daughter duo at Allama Iqbal International Airport, arrested them after immigration process.

Sharif returned from Britain after an anti-corruption court handed him a 10-year jail term and sentenced his daughter and political heir to seven years in prison for failing to prove that money used to buy luxury flats in London in the 1990s was not ill-gotten.

Recent opinion polls suggest PML-N is losing its lead nationally to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of arch-rival Khan, whose anti-corruption message has resonated with many Pakistanis.

Sharif, who was disqualified by the Supreme Court a year ago in the Panama Papers case, is now the supremo of the PML-N.

The armed forces, which have directly ruled Pakistan for nearly half of its existence, have repeatedly denied interfering in the election. They both deny wrongdoing.

After the Supreme Court ousted Sharif last July, the courts barred him from heading the PML-N party he founded.

Further, the PML-N president said the verdict in the Avenfield reference was "unjust". Many PML-N lawmakers have also defected to Khan's party. Sections of the party oppose Sharif's combative approach against the army and fear it will turn off voters in a deeply conservative and patriotic Muslim nation of 208 million people.

After boarding the flight Friday, Sharif posted a video on social media urging supporters to show up in droves for the July 25 election, and thereby resist what he has called a conspiracy to oust his ruling party from power.

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